Guest Blogger Timberwolf: Baltim Heavy Raider Review & Video

Lootcritter here: Following his review for the Quas Flight Deck Cruiser, Timberwolf is back with his take on the new Baltim Heavy Raider. He’s a great source of information and contributor over at The SHOW. If you’re looking for advice I recommend you check out his YouTube channel, and don’t forget to listen in on The SHOW – the best Star Trek Online Podcast for build advice and news 😉

Baltim Heavy Raider Review:

Now I’ll be the first to say I am not a escort/raider guy in Star Trek Online, even though I love the Defiant from Deep Space 9 and the Maelstrom heavy patrol escort in game. I’m a cruiser guy, it’s just what I love to fly. However, when this ship was gifted to me by a friend and I started to fly it around Earth Space dock, I fell in love with the escort/raider style…and this particular raider was amazing to test out.

The style of the ship implies speed, with the smooth curved front end and thin spikes protruding from the rear, and testing this ship out of the box it was fast! Not only was it fast, man it is agile! just its stock turn rate and having the pilot tree as a secondary yielded a turn rate of 49.0 deg/sec…You can keep a tight circle around a Borg Sphere in game! When adding the Tachyokinetic Converter and the Conductive RCS consoles, the turn rate shot up to 71.4 deg/sec! Anymore turn rate on this boat and we could replicate a Death Blossom from “The Last Starfighter”.

With this much maneuverability, I had to install several dual beam banks, the new Quantum Phase Torpedo, and a Omni Antiproton beam array in the aft slot and head out for testing. With 10K shields, 61K hull, and a mass amount of critical hit stats on this ship, it melted normal difficulty enemy targets like butter! I found myself spinning around in combat alot trying to control her as she barreled around (don’t get me started on how hard it was to keep her steady under the effects of Attack Pattern Omega and Evasive Maneuvers). While I was not able to parse my damage output from this ship on her maiden voyage, I’ve noticed that with the Waylay trait active my shields didn’t have any trouble staying up and my hull strength was fine as well. I have my test video linked below

All in all, a good raider with a lot of various options for Boff seating and abilities. Add in a good starship trait, improved raider flanking, and an ambush portal console to guarantee you flank a target…and you have a raider that has a sizeable damage output potential and good survivability built into it. Another great job by Thomas the Cat and the starship building crew! Now on to other ships, builds, and well having fun with my Iconian ships!